by Neesa Hart
“I happen to like these pajamas,” she said, refusing to apologize even though she was acutely aware that the flannel had worn thin in several revealing spots. “They were a gift from two of my nieces.”
“I can see why you’re taken with them.” His gaze dropped to her feet. “They match your slippers.”
Molly frowned. “Shut up, Sam.” She started toward the living room. He paused a moment before following her.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call,” he said quietly. “It’s been a very long week.”
She brushed a cotton throw aside in the overstuffed armchair so he could sit. Sam seemed to drop into the chair. He slipped off his loafers and lifted his sock-clad feet to the ottoman with a weary groan. “I just wanted to see you tonight.” He glanced around the room. “I hope I’m not intruding.”
The truth was, Molly thought wryly, Sam had intruded on her every evening and most days that week. “It’s fine.” She stared at him for a minute. “You really look exhausted. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Weary. Not necessarily exhausted.”
Molly decided not to point out that the dark circles under his eyes and the two-days’ beard growth told another story. “You want something to drink?”
“Do you have any food? I didn’t stop to eat.”
“Peanut butter,” she answered. “I don’t keep a lot on hand.”
He dropped his head back against the chair. “Have you eaten already?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God,” he said. “I was afraid I’d have to be polite and ask if you wanted to go out.”
That made Molly laugh. “In case you haven’t noticed, Sam, Payne isn’t exactly the kind of place where I’d go out to dinner dressed in my pajamas.”
“Then give me a second to summon the energy, and I’ll go make myself a peanut butter sandwich.”
Molly studied the corners of his eyes where the grooves seemed to have deepened since Tuesday. She made a quick decision. “I’ll get it,” she volunteered, picking up her empty teacup. “I was due for a refill on my tea, anyway.”
MOLLY RETURNED from the kitchen to find Sam asleep in the chair. His face, though relaxed, looked haggard. What in the world had he been doing for the last week that had sucked the life out of him? This was more than a mere dispute with his sister about a birthday party. Sam was in serious emotional pain—whether he’d admit it or not.
Her eyes dropped to his hands where the scrape across his knuckles had begun to heal. It reminded her of seeing his boat Monday night, a part of Sam’s life that had simultaneously endeared him to her, yet made her recognize that their worlds were far apart. People she knew in Payne sometimes worked on their cars to avoid mechanics’ fees. Sam was working on a vintage sailboat merely to restore it, with every intention of taking it out to sea.
While Molly didn’t doubt that Sam had enjoyed his share of casual relationships without messy entanglements and long-term commitments, Molly wasn’t as resilient. She had kept every ticket stub from every movie she’d ever seen. In fact, she collected friends, relatives, and memorabilia with the fervor of a librarian collecting books. She invested herself fully in friendships and romances. Separations were hard for her, and the decision to become involved in a person’s life took more than a morning’s negotiation and a swift business decision about mutual gain.
Molly put his sandwich down on the coffee table and prodded his shoulder. “Sam?”
He didn’t budge. “Sam,” she said more insistently.
He stirred, rolled his head to the other side of the overstuffed chair, and sank even more deeply into the seat. She’d have to blast him out of the chair with dynamite if she expected him to leave tonight.
He mumbled something under his breath. There was an indefinable tone in the sound, in the slight shift of his expression, that wrapped itself around her heart and squeezed it tightly. A lock of hair had tumbled over his forehead. Molly reached out to brush it into place. He muttered again.
She couldn’t explain it, but she was sure she heard loneliness in the low sound. With a sigh of resignation, Molly reached for a cotton throw and spread it over his legs.
At least Mrs. Pickernut would have something to gossip about when she noticed Sam’s sports car parked in front of Molly’s house all night.
DISORIENTED, SAM TRIED to figure out where he was. Except for a slight green light which threw strange shadows around the room, it was dark. There was a warm, purring weight in his lap which a stroke of his hand confirmed was a cat.
Molly, Sam remembered. He’d returned to Payne and come to Molly. His stomach tightened into a fist of hunger. Sam realized why he’d awakened. Molly had gone to make him a sandwich. He’d evidently fallen asleep in the chair before he could eat it.
When he moved his legs, he felt a stiffness in his muscles and joints from the awkward angle of the ottoman. The cat stretched lazily awake. It purred loudly as it arched its back and rubbed its ears against Sam’s legs. Sam scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to chase away the lingering fog of weariness that still held him in a tight grip. His two-day beard scraped his palm.
God, he thought, he must look like a wreck. Molly had told him so when he’d turned up on her doorstep. His eyes were beginning to adjust to the light, and Sam could make out the shadows of the furniture in Molly’s living room. The green glow, he realized was coming from a night-light plugged into a hall receptacle. He pushed the illumination button on his watch to check the time.
Three-thirty. Molly must have gone to bed and left him sleeping in the chair. He tried to decide why that irritated him. Surely he hadn’t expected her to take him to her bed—not tonight, and not after he’d failed to call her for a week. He doubted that she could have wakened him if she’d tried. He hadn’t had more than four hours of sleep a night since he’d left town, and he was too damned old to keep those hours.
Not to mention that Molly probably wasn’t amused that he’d ignored her all week. Hell, he was lucky she’d let him through the front door.
Smooth move, Sam, he thought wryly. How many times had his sister joked that the reason Sam remained eligible was that no woman could put up with him? His behavior tonight, no doubt, was exactly what Taylor was talking about.
As his eyes continued to adjust, he caught a glimpse of something on the coffee table. Further inspection revealed a sandwich and a glass of milk. He’d had gourmet meals that didn’t look as good. He shoved the cat off his lap, ignoring its outraged cry, and reached for the sandwich.
If he were half the gentleman his stepmother had raised him to be, he’d slip quietly out of Molly’s house and leave her in peace. A bouquet of flowers and an eloquently worded note of apology would follow. His sister, on the other hand, would say that diamonds got you further than flowers. Sam had a feeling that Molly wasn’t going to fall for anything clichéd—no matter what the price tag. And, much to his stepmother’s dismay, Sam had not always taken her advice.
He polished off the sandwich, washed it down with the milk, and reached for the cotton blanket as he moved to Molly’s sofa. No way in hell was he leaving now that he’d finally gotten inside Molly’s life. In the morning, he’d read her mood and determine what to do. In his experience, gifts and apology notes were for cowards.
Sam had been called many things in his life, but nobody ever mistook him for a coward.
MOLLY’S NOSE TWITCHED as she caught the scent of frying bacon. She stretched luxuriously in her four-poster bed and tried to sleep again, but the aroma made her stomach growl. She frowned and cracked her eyes open. The clock read seven-thirty. Other aromas had begun to mingle with the bacon, including the addictive scent of freshly brewed coffee.
With a soft exclamation, Molly sat upright in the bed. Sam! Sam, with his unexpected visit, was cooking breakfast and making coffee in her kitchen. After she’d covered him with the cotton blanket last night, Molly had worked for several hours, going through the volumes of notes and documents she’d collected that wee
k.
In the back corner of her mind, she’d expected him to awaken, but Sam had slept peacefully on, and by the time she’d grown too tired to concentrate, she didn’t have the heart, or the energy, to prod him out of his chair. So she’d left him sleeping and plodded up the stairs to bed. If he awoke in the night, he could find his own way out.
Evidently, he’d stayed.
And he was making breakfast.
The realization made Molly frown. Unless he’d made a trip to the store that morning, he was working miracles with a tub of peanut butter, a block of cheese, and a jar of pickles.
Molly tossed the covers aside, slid her feet into her slippers and headed for the door. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, frowning at her tumble of unruly red hair. She pulled a brush through it, then abandoned the effort. Experience had taught her that the only cure for her morning hair was a shower and half a tube of mousse.
“Great,” Molly muttered. She had super-sexy Sam cooking in her kitchen and she looked as though she’d spent the night outside in a tornado. Molly groaned and turned away. Maybe this was exactly what she needed to cure the tug on her heartstrings that she felt every time she looked at Sam Reed.
She found him in the kitchen, deftly flipping pancakes. He still wore his dark dress trousers, but he’d shed the rumpled white shirt and tie from the night before. A white T-shirt stretched taut across a sculpted chest, and broad shoulders tapered to a lean waist and trim hips.
She was suddenly starkly aware of her rumpled pajamas. Sam’s dark hair lay in attractive disarray around his angular face. Molly closed her eyes for a moment. She should have known that Sam was a man who wouldn’t have bad hair days. He was in control of his universe. Even his hair wouldn’t dare to displease him.
He seemed to sense her scrutiny, tossing her a look over his shoulder and giving her a dazzling smile. His slight growth of beard made her groan. He looked rugged and sophisticated, handsome and decadent, and way too good in her space. “Good morning,” he said brightly.
And he was a morning person. She added that to the list of his flaws she was trying desperately to maintain. “Hi.”
He indicated the pan with a nod of his head. “Hope you’re hungry.”
“Where did you get the stuff for pancakes?” she pressed, her eyes darting to the pot of fresh coffee. “And the bacon.” As she headed for the coffee, Sam seemed to anticipate her. He took a mug from her rack and slid it across the counter. “Your neighbor was up,” he told her. “I begged.”
Molly filled her mug. “My neighbor?” She took a sip of the dark brew as Sam turned his attention back to the pancakes. Molly’s stomach growled loudly.
“The older lady.” Sam tossed a pancake in the air and caught it with a deft flip of his wrist. “Next door.”
Molly choked. “Mrs. Pickernut?”
“Uh, Dorothy, she said.”
Molly had lived in the row house for five years and had never once heard her landlady use her first name. “You borrowed food from Mrs. Pickernut?”
“She was sitting on her porch reading the paper,” Sam explained. He slid two perfectly brown pancakes onto a plate, making Molly inexplicably cranky. The last time she’d made pancakes, they’d been scorched on the outside and raw in the middle. “How many of these do you want?”
Molly ignored his question. “What she was doing,” she informed him, “was watching your car to see whose house you were visiting.”
Sam shrugged. “Maybe. She seemed pleased to meet me.”
“Did you tell her you’re the guy who took over the Sentinel?”
“She likes the coupon section,” Sam told her with a wink.
“She would,” Molly drawled. She watched him slide two more pancakes on a plate. “I hope you don’t expect me to eat all that.”
He added two pieces of bacon, then passed her the plate. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” he told her. “Or haven’t you heard?”
“I’ve heard. And I usually try to eat it around twelve.” She accepted the plate and moved to the table.
“But we’ve got duck races to attend,” he countered.
“I know. I keep trying to tell the festival committee that if they want to do something really creative, they should start them at noon.”
“I take it you aren’t a morning person.” He finished filling his own plate.
“You aren’t the only reason I’m in a bad mood at editorial meetings,” she assured him. “When you moved them to eight-thirty you pretty much guaranteed I’d be crabby.”
Molly waited while Sam poured himself a cup of coffee and joined her at the table. He gave her a lopsided smile that made her stomach flip. “I’ll try to remember that.”
“But you won’t consider changing meeting times.”
“No,” He picked up his fork. “I just won’t take it personally when you give me lip.”
“You’re hilarious, Sam.”
His expression turned unexpectedly serious. “I’m also sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep last night.”
“You looked exhausted,” she said quietly.
“You could say that. It’s been a long week.”
Molly waited, but he didn’t elaborate. Frustrated, she plunked her fork down on the table. “You’re really annoying, you know that?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
“You’re annoying.” She waved in his direction. “You disappeared on Tuesday with little or no explanation, and I haven’t heard from you since. Then you show up at my house looking like something the cat dragged in.” As if on cue, Errol, who’d been circling her feet hoping for breakfast crumbs, jumped into her lap. Molly stroked the cat’s dark fur. “You make me breakfast—breakfast, for God’s sake, and then you think you can just mention that you’ve been a little busy this week and that’s it.” She glared at him. “You have no intention of telling me where you were, do you?”
“No.”
“Then you’ve got a lot to learn about relationships, Sam.”
“No doubt.”
“You don’t just drop off the face of the earth without an explanation—especially after what happened between us on Monday night. That’s not how it works.”
“I never claimed to be good at this,” he reminded her.
Irritated, Molly blew a stray curl off her forehead. “I want to know where you were.”
He leaned back in his chair. “It’s not worth the effort it would take to explain.”
Molly was beginning to wonder what the hell she’d been thinking when she’d decided this week that she simply needed to manage him better.
She couldn’t even manage her checkbook most months, much less a man like Sam Reed. She could not have chosen a more unlikely man to fall for if she’d tried. She loved her small-town existence, thrived on family gatherings and town events. Molly liked the quiet peace of Payne and its easy pace of life. Sam, on the other hand, clearly found her world—where neighbors knew her business and friends helped to bear her burdens—a foreign thing.
But Molly couldn’t make herself drop the subject.
And the slightly wistful look on his face reminded her of when he’d talked about his first paper route. He wanted her to probe. He wanted someone to rely on. Sam was desperate for the unconditional love Molly had learned to take for granted. Despite his family’s financial resources, Molly had grown up so much wealthier. She’d had the love and support of family, while Sam had struggled to define his place in Edward Reed’s life.
In many ways, Sam reminded her of a stray cat she’d once begged her parents to take in. The cat had turned up on their doorstep, grateful for Molly’s offering of milk and tuna fish. A thorn was deeply embedded in one paw, and Molly managed to coax the animal into letting her remove it, but not into staying through the night inside the house. The animal’s persistent whining had forced Molly’s parents to insist that she put the cat in a box on the porch. By morning, the cat had disappeared. Night after night, it came back
, ate its meal, then disappeared into the shadows. Molly tried to befriend the animal, but it never warmed up to her. One day, the cat had not returned for its meal, and Molly never saw it again.
Sam, she sensed, was much like that cat. He would accept what she gave, but something in his psyche kept him from giving back. He was guarded and careful, protective of his privacy and extremely independent. In another era, he might have pursued the life of a gunslinger. He would come into town, do a job he thought needed doing, and move on before he could form attachments.
As a child, Molly had been hurt by the cat’s desertion. As an adult, she’d found over and over again that she was incapable of turning away wounded strays, despite the danger of betrayal.
The secret, she knew, was to accept the very real possibility of a broken heart as the price for taking in a stray. But somehow, the stakes seemed higher with Sam.
Studying the mercurial look in his eyes, she wondered how she could ever compare him to anything as harmless as a stray cat. A stray mountain lion, maybe—with the wits, speed, and power to match. He was trouble, her mind told her—but the wary look in his eyes made her heart race.
In her entire life, Molly had never been able to turn her back on that please-teach-me-to-trust-you look.
She exhaled a slow sigh. “All right, Sam, I think we need to get a few things straight here.”
He gave her that wary look again, then cast a quick glance at her kitchen clock. “What time are the races?”
“We’ve got time,” she assured him. “I’ve done some thinking this week—about us.”
He shifted in his chair and picked up the lopsided clay napkin holder one of her nieces had given her for Christmas last year. “Really?” he said, examining the object.
“Yes.” Drawing a steadying breath, Molly told herself to get a grip. The quivers and quakes his presence set off in her nervous system, she supposed, was what the poets meant by elemental attraction. There was something about Sam Reed that reminded her of the earth—powerful, unpredictable, rock solid. “And since we have a few minutes,” she told him, “I’d appreciate it if we could work some things out.”
